The Automaton Heart
by infinitelystrangemachine
Summary: 50 flash prompts for Obi x Shirayuki: "It hasn't stopped." Shirayuki, shivering under a clinging layer of snow and adrenaline, can't follow. "Huh?" Obi smiles wryly and looks out over the blurred edge of the white cliff, the most extreme form of resuscitation he's ever experienced. "My heart."
1. Monstrous

_Hello, hello, and welcome to the first flash prompt of _The Automaton Heart_! These aren't being written in any particular order and they're not even being posted in the order they're written in, but at least some of them will be chronological. Some will be long, some will be very short. The chapters are based on fifty one-word prompts I pulled from a random word generator, and they're about the development of Obi and Shiryauki's relationship. Ship the good ship ObiYuki with me, my _AnS_-loving friends. :) Happy reading!_

_All credit goes to the manga-ka, Akiduki Sorata._

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_"I'm only a man with a candle to guide me,_  
_ I'm taking a stand to escape what's inside me._  
_ A monster, a monster, I've turned into a monster;_  
_ A monster, a monster,_  
_** And it keeps getting stronger**._"

- "_Monster_" by Imagine Dragons

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#18: Monstrous

A few pungent bottles of something Obi can't pronounce into the night, and he is drawn away from the furthest vestiges of the party to become the center of a rowdy throng of Tanburn and Lions of the Mountains soldiers. Obi hasn't had a drink in months, and now it's calmed the infinitesimal shaking of his hands and the shadowy swirling of his thoughts. While Obi lets out a happy cry and waves a kunai aloft amidst husky roars and brotherly punches from the crowd, he thinks the alcohol might have stemmed something else, a feely sort of something hidden under his left temple that he'd tapped earlier while trying to jog the something loose, but to no avail. No matter. He chucks the kunai haphazardly, burying it up to the hilt in a cooked chicken, and the man carrying it howls with laughter, setting off the rest of the crowd.

"You!" shouts a nearby archer, pounding Obi on the back and dislodging the prawns someone has been stacking on Obi's head (he grabs one out of the air and eats it whole). "You are a _monster_, you know that?!"

Obi stumbles in a half-circle and finally claps the man on what he thinks is his shoulder - it's actually his bulbous nose, but Obi thinks he achieves the same effect. "I, sir?" he bellows, and the crowd "ooohs." "_Aye_, sir!" The crowd roars. "I am a shadow in the night! A soundless warrior, a slayer of pirates, an eater of spicy fish!" He throws his arms in the air and slowly rotates, drawing friendly slaps and joyful catcalls everywhere he turns, until someone yells over the litany.

"Tell us again! Tell us how you did it!"

The drink drowns Obi's aloofness. "Ha! How I slew two dozen scallywags? How I sent their fiercest warriors to the depths of Davy Jones' Locker?!"

Even as the men scream their approval, the asker is persistent. "No, no! How you ran through the wilderness! How you traveled dozens and dozens of miles on foot! You ran for days without food, with nothing but mountain water to sustain you!"

The crowd slowly quiets. Obi pauses. Real curiosity has stemmed their yells and sobered their flushed faces, and his lips tremble uncertainly. (Breaking through the haze of drink, Obi remembers streams crisscrossing his path, envisions how he set his pace equal to the flow of running water - a relentless, flying pace, faster than gravity's slide down the mountainside.) "You ran Mikaze's right-hand man down like an animal and dragged him to his own headquarters by knife-point. You fought him! How did you do it, man?"

"I -" The crowd chokes utterly silent in anticipation of his reply, but Obi's tongue is thick and warm in his mouth. Desperately, he throws back his head and cries, "I am as you say. I'm a monster!"

The crowd erupts into merriment again, crushing inward to hug him on all sides. Sobriety has pierced his consciousness, though. Awareness floods him like water bursting past a plug. "How about if Itoya had beaten you?" someone shouts playfully. Obi can't see any faces through the crush of humanity, something like forests obscured by trees. "What if you'd been too tired to go on, then? What if you'd been wounded, man?!"

For a miraculous moment, Obi thinks the crowd parts. His awareness has narrowed to a fine point - Shirayuki hovering outside the limits of the crush, looking for him, probably alerted by his loud shouts. Their eyes lock, and a face framed by red hair is like a lit candle, beckoning to his boat on the sea. He watches her while he replies under his breath. "Then I would have crawled."

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_I think I completely rewrote this one three or four times, so it's satisfying to post it first. It goes from bitter to funny to bitter again... Obi was awesome while he was rescuing Shirayuki, but he also scared the crap out of me - he scared Shirayuki, too, if you take a second look at their confrontation in Chapter 26. Hopefully you guys remember who Itoya is - the ponytail guy Obi went gangsta on while he was looking for Shirayuki. Good times. I love writing about these two.  
_

_Leave a review and bully me into writing the next chapter. Stay beautiful, and thank you!_

_-ISM  
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	2. Inadmissibility

_So AnS Chapter 53 ripped out my heart and threw it across the Pacific. This manga gives me pain, and I give it more fic! I was thinking about the various reasons why Obi has been keeping his feelings for Shirayuki secret. Protecting Zen's relationship with her has never seemed like a good enough explanation for someone like Obi._

_Also, Ryu knows. He just _knows_._

_Happy reading!_

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"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."  
-Lao Tzu

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#44: Inadmissibility

"Master Obi," said Ryu, sorting his scattered papers one-handed with a book braced in the other arm, "when are you going to tell Miss Shirayuki that you love her?"

To his credit, Obi did not make an even slightly girlish noise when he walked straight into the nearest white stone pillar; it was more of a subtle, manly grunt (crossed with a pig's squeal). Shock smashed its way through him. All the papers he'd helped gather so far burst from his grip in every direction, and Ryu calmly set about scooping them up. He stared oddly at Obi the whole while, wondering if Obi was comfortable leaning silently with his face against the pillar like that.

"Miss Shirayuki is being transferred together with me, after all," Ryu pointed out, concerned that Obi didn't seem to be catching on and snatching the last paper before it could fly up and stick itself to the back of Obi's head. "You might not be able to see her again for a while."

Obi finally gathered himself enough to build a lax smile on his face, muscle by muscle and inch by inch. It was like carving misshapen pieces out of the earth and stone around him, then mashing them together and calling it a mask.

He whipped around and laughed frantically; Ryu stared at him blankly, vaguely aghast. "Hey, little Ryu, I don't know what you mean, but the young mistress and I-"

He hadn't known what he was going to say, so he was kind of glad that Ryu quietly interrupted him. "You don't have to be like that. You're always here together with Miss Shirayuki; you make excuses to come and see her. You laugh with her and you're happiest when you're with her. I don't talk about it, but I know you love her."

Simplicity beat all of Obi's protests stroke for steady stroke. Abruptly, there were no arguments left to him. The strained grin frozen on his face melted at the edges, and he stuck gloved hands in his pockets. He had nothing to fear from this small, unwitting boy. Wind thumbed through the papers in Ryu's grasp. "I'm not going to tell her," he said.

Fully expecting the young pharmacist to burst out with at least a _Why?_, he was surprised when Ryu simply stared at him thoughtfully, jaw moving a little in tandem with whatever hundred thousand thoughts were beating his brain black and blue.

"That prince," he said finally, and Obi winced. "Prince Zen loves Miss Shirayuki, too, and you call him your master. Is that why you won't tell her?"

"No, that's not quite it." Not _all_ of it, at least.

Ryu frowned. "Miss Shirayuki is... really honest. She tells me everything that she's thinking about. So do you - usually." Obi smiled. "When Miss Shirayuki tells me what she thinks about me, I like it, whether it's good or bad. If you told her what you thought about her, I think it would make her feel... loved. That's a good feeling."

"Young Ryu," he said with difficulty, "feelings can be a gift to the people around you." _Theirs_ were to him. "But sometimes, knowing what someone else feels about you can be a... great burden." He rested a gentle hand on Ryu's thin shoulder. "If I tell my mistress how I feel, I think it will hurt her."

In his mind's eye, a terrible scenario played out. Eyes green like sunlight shafting through leaves clouding over; unsmiling, pale lips thinning to nothing. The ember of hope that he so selfishly clung to flickered in his chest.

Ryu let Obi's words sink in. And then: "What about you?"

He chuckled. "I'm fine." If he had anything to do with it, Master and Shirayuki would be fine, too. "I'm always fine."

Later, Shirayuki bent over several open, dusty tomes on the surface of a greenhouse table. Obi approached and poked her in the back with a steaming plate of shrimp and noodles, and when she startled and turned around, her stilted limbs seemed to sag with some measure of relief.

She didn't react when Obi told her what he knew about the transfer. She only dug into the food with more gusto despite its spiciness, laughed tiredly, and said, between bites, "Obi, what am I going to do without you?"

Ryu's words struck Obi's thoughts with almost audible force. He wrangled away a nervous laugh and thought about the things he knew to be true. He licked dry lips and clenched gloved hands under the table.

_I know you love her._

"You're brave, Mistress," he said at last. Summer-green eyes were on him, their weight warm and light. "I think you're the bravest person I know. Besides, Master is with you. I'm with you. Even when we're apart." Where was the edge of this precipice? Under his toes? It was painted somewhere on her face, if only he could look at it properly. "You're going to be all right."

Silence fell like dusk, settling and drifting for an undefinable amount of time. When Obi's stubbornly deflated lungs were working again, he raised his head and found Shirayuki smiling damply.

"Thank you," she whispered.

It was then that Obi believed, for perhaps the very first time, that he really was going to be just fine.

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_It's important to tell loved ones things, even when it's hard. Obi is just kind of limited to the amount of truth he can tell... heh heh... I wouldn't be surprised if Obi just never revealed his feelings to anyone, but Sorata-san can only tease us so much, right?_

_Please review, tell me what you're thinking, and stay beautiful!_

_-ISM_


	3. Noise

_Hello! How is everyone doing? I've been doing another AnS reread, and it's so beautiful and wonderful, and so hilariously painful how quickly and obviously Obi fell in love with Shirayuki that my feels are just everywhere. Chapter 54 was great! I think, however, that all is not as it seems..._

_This flash piece was quick and fun to write. It's always fun to think about what Obi and Shirayuki experienced in Tanburn (Tanbarun? Well, simplicity is everything), and I've taken some liberties with the time frame covered in the manga. I think they were at the palace for quite some time, not to mention traveling time. This will definitely not be the last Tanburn chapter._

_Happy reading!_

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"Silence is a true friend who never betrays."  
-Confucius

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#11: Noise

Every second Shirayuki spends in Tanburn is a second stretched to the point of cracking the furthest edges of its allotted time. So far, they've been pretty strange seconds, too. Seconds filled with noise.

Every day at two and six P.M., there is the cripplingly uncomfortable sound of herself and Prince Raji drinking their tea. She can almost hear Raji silently wishing he could strangle himself with his cravat over their polite, wet sips. There is the constant rustle and hush of fine, starched fabric about her calves and forearms, sounds that fire little itches up along her knees, elbows, and shoulders that probably aren't really there. And, of course, there is the cacophony of the palace itself, much different from the friendly, busy hum of Wistal - involving many more bangs, thuds, shouts, and staff members scurrying from room to hallway to stairwell, mainly, Shirayuki is finding, because of the nefarious twin royals, Rona and Eugena.

However, not even the terrible twins (as she begins to affectionately call them in her mind) can raise a ruckus equal to the one going on inside Shirayuki's own head.

Thoughts racing faster and faster, Shirayuki quickly lets them slip out of her control. Tanburn feels like a trap rather than the home she'd once loved. Faceless whispers follow her around corners, and there is always, always the possibility that she won't be allowed to leave even once the ball is over and she packs up her long skirts and gowns for good. Memories of Raji's insufferable idiocy crash over her mind in nauseating waves, eating away at more recent recollections of his sincerity and unexpected smiles. Worst of all, there are Prince Izana's half-concealed threats, sly and patronizing and drifting like smog over her every step.

The blood in her veins (common as dirt) roars in her ears.

A touch to her elbow, warm and featherlight to near nonexistence, interrupts. Her thoughts are silenced. Effortlessly, she anchors her mind to Obi's presence mere inches behind her.

Obi is so easy to forget about these days. He is utter quiet adrift on a sea of whispering staff, Raji's bumbling, training, politics, and the unfamiliarity of the palace. But he is always there, she remembers now; always in her line of sight and ready to deliver perfectly timed eye-rolls or weird faces to make her laugh and snort, unprepared, into her sleeves and kerchief when no one else is looking. Always there to murmur encouragement and bits of advice near the back of her neck the instant she begins to doubt herself. Always steadying her - she remembers strong hands catching her in the library the day before, his warm smile later that night in the dark.

A small, blonde shape scuttles across the hallway in the distance; a trail of maids hurries after, their cries of annoyance and worry finding Shirayuki and Obi further back on the grand stretch of red carpet and stone. The sounds are clear and bright in Shirayuki's ears.

When Obi murmurs, "How are you doing, Mistress?" she can honestly whisper back, "Better."

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_Yahoo, Shirayuki's perspective! It's a much less turbulent point of view to write from, which is interesting, since Obi is so lighthearted and hilarious. He's a mysterious guy, and Shirayuki is totally straightforward in everything she says and does. I also think I stuck to the actual prompt better in this chapter!_

_Please do review, dear readers, and stay beautiful!_

_-ISM_


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